Soon, drivers might be able to enlist the help of a high-tech backseat driver that can offer warnings anytime they hit the road. A new type of technology called Brain4Cars would help drivers predict errors and alert them – in the form of a light, sound or a vibration - seconds before mistakes occur.

Researchers at Cornell and Stanford universities are steering this new technology to help improve driver safety. The system uses cameras inside the car to monitor the driver, coupled with data from sensors outside the car, to predict whether someone is about to make a wrong turn or a dangerous decision.

Face-detection and tracking software is used to identify certain head movements and gestures associated with lane changes and turns. Furthermore, the technology could potentially take over braking and steering if it anticipates a crash will occur.

The system could also enlist GPS data to warn a driver if he's about to make, say, an illegal turn on a one-way street.

"There are many systems now that monitor what's going on outside the car," Ashutosh Saxena, assistant professor of computer science at Cornell, told Phys.org. "Internal monitoring of the driver will be the next leap forward."

While developing the system, researchers recorded video of 10 people driving 1,180 miles on the freeway and on urban roads over a period of two months. Saxena explained the system accurately predicted the driver's actions 77.4 percent of the time and anticipated their intentions an average of 3.53 seconds in advance – which is perhaps enough to prevent an accident and save lives.

The research team says the prototype system is in the "first steps" and that further advancements must be made before the technology is production-ready, possibly including infrared cameras for clearer night vision and 3D cameras for better accuracy.

New York's One World Trade Center became the biggest skyscraper in the United States when the building officially opened in Nov., 2014. What's next? We take a look at the ten tallest skyscrapers from around the world scheduled to debut in 2015.

Topped out in August of last year, and set to open to the public in a few months, China's 2,073-foot (632-meter) Shanghai Tower will be the tallest building in China and the second tallest in the world, behind the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The twisting form is designed to lessen the impact of winds during typhoons.

At 1,394 feet (425 meters), the Marina 101 building in Dubai is being billed as the world's tallest hotel. The 101st floor will house the Middle East's first Hard Rock Cafe & Lounge, with a 360-degree view of the city.

When it officially opens this spring, the all-residential 432 Park Avenue skyscraper in midtown Manhattan (1,396 feet/426 meters) will be the second-tallest building in New York City, behind One World Trade Center. Click around the

Surely the most sternly named skyscraper on our list, the 76-story Capital Market Authority Tower in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, will rise to a height of 1,263 feet (385 meters). The building will use a system of solar panels to harness power from the desert sun, plus an external layer of fins and gantries to provide shade.

As the tallest of five towers in the Eton Place complex in the city of Dalian, China, Tower 1 (1,257 feet / 383 meters) will house offices, hotels, a convention center and an observation deck. The complex's podium will also feature a large public park, designed as a "green canyon" among the high-rise buildings.

Under construction for 12 years, the Federation Tower in Moscow will top out at 1,224 feet (373 meters) when it's completed in 2015. In 2012, a massive fire broke out on the then-top floors of the incomplete tower, delaying construction yet again.

The second of Moscow's two big skyscrapers to open in 2015, the OKO Tower (1,155 feet / 352 meters) was designed by the same architecture team behind One World Trade Center and the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

Our final entrant, also in the United Arab Emirates, Dubai's Ahmed Abdul Rahim Al Attar Tower matches the ADNOC building's height at just over 342 meters. For more official information on the planet's tallest skyscrapers, visit the